No Regrets
by 0equilibrium0
Summary: "Do you regret what you've done?" "Of course not."


Disclaimer: I do not own YYH.

"That's…" Detective Mendel couldn't finish her sentence as she stared at the gruesome horror before her. She'd been on Homicide for ten years and had thought she'd seen it all. This proved her wrong.

The victim was probably male, if the height and build were any indication. He had been wearing blue jeans and a tan shirt. He reeked of death and alcohol.

His throat had been ripped out, as had his abdomen. The red was smeared across the sidewalk, a gristly painting. He looked like he'd been attacked by a wild animal, but there was something inherently, eerily human about the teeth marks visible on his muscular arm.

There was no way a human had done it.

There was no way an animal had done it.

Lieutenant Delia Houston hoped they got lucky.

They did. Both saliva and hair had been found at the scene and positively matched to one Minamino Shuichi, from Tokyo. He was sitting in Houston's interview room within two hours.

"Hello, officer. And what might I do for you today?" He was impeccably dressed, and he spoke with only the slightest hint of a Japanese accent. His long red hair was pulled into a neat ponytail. He was the perfect image of respectability.

And that was something Houston immediately distrusted.

"Where were you the morning of the eighth, between two and two thirty?" Her voice was gruff, her tone focused.

Shuichi smiled slightly and Delia's blood ran cold. "I was in New York City. In an alley off of Tenth Street, to be precise. Would you like to know what I was doing?" There was a challenge, a current running just under the surface. He wanted her to ask.

She wanted to know. "Yes, I would. Might it have something to do with the hair and saliva we found there? Both of which, by the way, were positively matched to you."

The smile widened, became feral. "Sharp, aren't you? Yes, it does. It has a lot to do with that. Are you sure you want to know? I have a tendency to describe things in detail. It wouldn't be pleasant for you."

"Tell me."

The demonic grin twisted his features into sharp, vulpine angles. It was horrifying. It was beautiful.

"It was about two-oh-three when I found him. He was intoxicated, stumbling along. It wasn't particularly unusual, considering that we were about a block from a bar. He was a mean drunk. He saw me, and decided he'd have some fun trying to mug me, because, apparently, I looked like an easy mark. He told me to give him all my money.

"It's been a long time since someone tried something that stupid. I laughed at him. He, understandably, was angered by this. Enraged, even. He swung his beer bottle at my head. I grabbed his arm. If you check the body, I'm sure you'll find claw marks on his right forearm. Anyway. With his free hand, he reached for my chest. I'm sure he thought I was a woman.

"My gender aside, I took offense at this. I bit the arm I was holding. This shocked him. He probably felt my teeth changing in his arm, becoming longer and sharper, beginning to scrape against the bone. He tried to run.

"Blood was filling my senses. I could taste it, smell it; I felt it running from my mouth, heard it coursing through his veins, saw it flowing down his arm. There is nothing quite as hypnotic, to my kind, as human blood. That, combined with his struggling, triggered my predatory instincts.

"I dug my claws into him and told him he was going to die. All I heard was the pounding, spattering of blood harmonizing with his screams, his pleas.

"I slowly opened his abdomen, being very careful to keep him conscious. I wanted to see the life drip out of his eyes, and told him so.

"I drew patterns with his blood, swirling it into obscure forms. I experimented, seeing what caused the most pain. I cut and tore and smiled at the sound of his cries.

"When I tired of my game, I hooked my claws into the side of his neck and whispered to him that his death was imminent. I ripped my hand back, and blood sprayed across my face. I watched as he gasped futilely. As animation slipped from his eyes, I smiled.

"But I wasn't finished. With the still warm-blood, I signed my name to the wall above the corpse."

"Does that satisfy your curiosity, Lieutenant?" His eyes, which had grown distant during his recollection, returned to Delia's.

Delia, for her part, had taken it well. It wasn't often a killer recounted his deeds so vividly, and with such a calm expression on his face.

_He signed his name?_ There had been a Japanese kanji on a wall of the alley, written in what had been confirmed as the victims' blood. It had taken the state's best language experts, but they had been able to determine that it was an ancient, long-forgotten dialect. The language had been dead for almost a thousand years. The kanji was a single word, a name: _Kurama_.

"_Breaking news! Within twenty-four hours of murder suspect Shuichi Minamino's arrest, all evidence against him disappeared! Even the mutilated corpse has vanished! The recordings that supposedly contain his gruesome confession are nothing more than melted piles._

"_The security tapes show no signs of being tampered with, yet what they show is impossible. They show all evidence connected to the case simply vanishing. While more investigation is obviously needed, the police department refuses to comment."_

So, in this, is the first monologue I have ever written. Did you like it? I usually don't do cop stories because I have only the vaguest idea of how the system works. But I thought it turned out okay… ChiCho out.


End file.
